Official Discussion Thread, "Unveiling The New Arcanist Class"

mdb800

mdb800 wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

mdb800 wrote: »

Back when Morrowind and oblivion was released, the PR with Bethesda actually mad it extremely clear that elder scrolls is not that type of fantasy game series, with carrying books into combat or singing songs while a clanfear tries to chew on you.

In a way we did have something like that though. Remember the spell scrolls, for example in Morrowind? They had sometimes extensive texts written on them. I always assumed that logically, to use them the character would read the incantations out loud.

Sorta they were single use or had limited charges. They operated more like runes. They were spells already imbued into the scroll by a different arcanist or mystic when already poured it heir Magicka into it. Think of someone saving a spell they cast into a CO2 canister. Once you use it, it's done. Like soul gems but instead of raw power, it is a specific spell. It wasn't as if the user had to open it and read certain lines to receive instructions on how to use that and forget said directions after it is read. Incantations imbued with power are a thing in elder scrolls but reading books in the middle of battle is not. Alot of NPC characters in morrowind discuss this and if I recall Skyrim has a scroll meant to darken the sky too but you end up imbuing the spell into a bow.

Also the whole "wizards reading from books while in battle" used to be a trope used to make jabs at "fantasy writers" as a form of mockery. Because characters did cast spells from scrolls , in stories and fiction written by novice writers, dnd players to learn them, kind of how some martial arts have scrolls demonstrating said moves are performed; the scroll doesn't get up and do the martial arts moves for you.

Also when the scrolls are consumed; your character performs the spell without the scroll in hand.

Syldras

mdb800 wrote: »

Incantations imbued with power are a thing in elder scrolls but reading books in the middle of battle is not.

I meant the aspect of reading and reciting something in battle. That happens in both cases, whether the character reads from a book or a scroll.

You're right though that the scroll is consumed after use. But we also don't know for sure what the Arcanist is doing with his book. It's not just a normal book he reads from, I'd think. Who knows how that kind of magic actually works.

MasterSpatula

Can't wait to break out my Akira arm.

"Tetsuoooooooo!"

"Kanedaaaaaaaaa!"

mdb800

Syldras wrote: »

mdb800 wrote: »

Incantations imbued with power are a thing in elder scrolls but reading books in the middle of battle is not.

I meant the aspect of reading and reciting something in battle. That happens in both cases, whether the character reads from a book or a scroll.

You're right though that the scroll is consumed after use. But we also don't know for sure what the Arcanist is doing with his book. It's not just a normal book he reads from, I'd think. Who knows how that kind of magic actually works.

I mean knowledge is power it's a good direction. I think they should just swap the book ( in the animation, not the concept of the skill line) with something else, like light inscribing reality, which would fit with portal magic like a glove and be thematic of the daedric prince of knowledge.

LittlePinkDot

Sealish wrote: »

Finally... something I am hyped about in ESO after years of 'Meh'.

I am a huge fan of the Arcanist aesthetic and would love to play it. It is an addition that would make me pre-buy the expansion, re-subscribe, and pay an additional $20-$30 for a class change token.

Templar is fun and all, but it gets stale given that it has been my class since launch. In fact, the combat having gotten stale (the last actual thing added to 'mix it up a bit' was the Psijic skill line YEARS ago) is the main reason I left. The zone and chapter stories and such still interest me, but playing with the same skillset for a decade just got boring.

At the same time, I have put hundreds of hours into this character. I have 100% completed all the vanilla zones, about half the chapter and DLC zones, and many of the dungeons. My adventure through Tamriel is my character's adventure through Tamriel. If I come back... I want to continue that adventure, not start a new one.

I am tempted by mysterious and alien magick, I want to lay down my aetherial spear and dive into forbidden knowledge... something SO in line with the theme of this new chapter that it feels borderline immersion breaking NOT to introduce a class change token. I mean really... could you imagine someone going up to Hermaeus Mora and being all "Hey so I, an exceptionally powerful and influential mortal who has been known to change the fate of the entire world like every year or two, would like to learn your arcane secrets. I am willing to trade my holy templar magic for it." And him going "Nope, I don't want to gain influence over someone who is one of the most powerful mortals of this age and who is obviously a nexus point for fate. I don't want the knowledge of their experience with Aedric magick, and I don't want to offer them access to secrets that may bind them to my service forever."

And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Class change tokens are now Lore Friendly (hell, you literally got the ability to respec in Skyrim FROM Hermaeus Mora), they wouldn't hurt the game in ANY way (FOTM Chasers can easily just make one character of every class. Lvling to 50 is quick and easy if you don't care about the RP journey that the character is on and you don't use the character as your self representation in the game world), they would be exceptionally profitable for ZOS, and they would bring back players like me to the game who don't find making an alt and abandoning your avatar within the game world a reasonable solution to class fatigue in a primarily story driven game.

Why do you think you have to do everything all over again on a new character.
I have many characters. Most of which haven't done most of everything.
You know champion points are account wide right?
When you start a new character you can immediately select all their CP perks.
All you do is power level a character to level 50 and they will be as capable as your first character.

nb_rich

I currently play on console so do not know much about the PTS but hopefully this makes it on there before launch. Reason being is your going to want to listen and read all the feedback before it goes live to have the class as balanced as possible. This is what actually worries me for about making this class, since it might be really over powered in the beginning then after that get nerfed really bad wthen every patch go through some sort of change that just pushes people away from it

tomfant

Power levelling to 50 is not the issue.
To fully flesh out a new char, you'll have to invest a lot of time and grind. Very likely its still needed to level skill lines of the fighters and mages guild as well as the psijic order. And you'll need skill points for all those abilities.
You also need horse training (which alone takes 180 days).

OtarTheMad

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Sealish wrote: »

Finally... something I am hyped about in ESO after years of 'Meh'.

I am a huge fan of the Arcanist aesthetic and would love to play it. It is an addition that would make me pre-buy the expansion, re-subscribe, and pay an additional $20-$30 for a class change token.

Templar is fun and all, but it gets stale given that it has been my class since launch. In fact, the combat having gotten stale (the last actual thing added to 'mix it up a bit' was the Psijic skill line YEARS ago) is the main reason I left. The zone and chapter stories and such still interest me, but playing with the same skillset for a decade just got boring.

At the same time, I have put hundreds of hours into this character. I have 100% completed all the vanilla zones, about half the chapter and DLC zones, and many of the dungeons. My adventure through Tamriel is my character's adventure through Tamriel. If I come back... I want to continue that adventure, not start a new one.

I am tempted by mysterious and alien magick, I want to lay down my aetherial spear and dive into forbidden knowledge... something SO in line with the theme of this new chapter that it feels borderline immersion breaking NOT to introduce a class change token. I mean really... could you imagine someone going up to Hermaeus Mora and being all "Hey so I, an exceptionally powerful and influential mortal who has been known to change the fate of the entire world like every year or two, would like to learn your arcane secrets. I am willing to trade my holy templar magic for it." And him going "Nope, I don't want to gain influence over someone who is one of the most powerful mortals of this age and who is obviously a nexus point for fate. I don't want the knowledge of their experience with Aedric magick, and I don't want to offer them access to secrets that may bind them to my service forever."

And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Class change tokens are now Lore Friendly (hell, you literally got the ability to respec in Skyrim FROM Hermaeus Mora), they wouldn't hurt the game in ANY way (FOTM Chasers can easily just make one character of every class. Lvling to 50 is quick and easy if you don't care about the RP journey that the character is on and you don't use the character as your self representation in the game world), they would be exceptionally profitable for ZOS, and they would bring back players like me to the game who don't find making an alt and abandoning your avatar within the game world a reasonable solution to class fatigue in a primarily story driven game.

Why do you think you have to do everything all over again on a new character.
I have many characters. Most of which haven't done most of everything.
You know champion points are account wide right?
When you start a new character you can immediately select all their CP perks.
All you do is power level a character to level 50 and they will be as capable as your first character.

Some people are just different. That was my concern too, I put a lot of time into my Magcro and made it my main. I want to do at least the vast majority of content with it so hearing that a class is going to be based on my favorite Daedric Prince, plus the spells look really good, has me interested. However, there is no way I am going to go through all of that content again. I may not do trials or HM stuff, typically just the normal version of dungeons, but this game is so massive now. So AT BEST a character who is this class will be, what I call, a main secondary... just means on days I don't feel like playing my main they are the first I jump to.

Plus you can grind to 50 but still be lacking Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Psijic, Undaunted etc. That can be annoying to relevel if you can't buy it in the crown store.

LittlePinkDot

OtarTheMad wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Sealish wrote: »

Finally... something I am hyped about in ESO after years of 'Meh'.

I am a huge fan of the Arcanist aesthetic and would love to play it. It is an addition that would make me pre-buy the expansion, re-subscribe, and pay an additional $20-$30 for a class change token.

Templar is fun and all, but it gets stale given that it has been my class since launch. In fact, the combat having gotten stale (the last actual thing added to 'mix it up a bit' was the Psijic skill line YEARS ago) is the main reason I left. The zone and chapter stories and such still interest me, but playing with the same skillset for a decade just got boring.

At the same time, I have put hundreds of hours into this character. I have 100% completed all the vanilla zones, about half the chapter and DLC zones, and many of the dungeons. My adventure through Tamriel is my character's adventure through Tamriel. If I come back... I want to continue that adventure, not start a new one.

I am tempted by mysterious and alien magick, I want to lay down my aetherial spear and dive into forbidden knowledge... something SO in line with the theme of this new chapter that it feels borderline immersion breaking NOT to introduce a class change token. I mean really... could you imagine someone going up to Hermaeus Mora and being all "Hey so I, an exceptionally powerful and influential mortal who has been known to change the fate of the entire world like every year or two, would like to learn your arcane secrets. I am willing to trade my holy templar magic for it." And him going "Nope, I don't want to gain influence over someone who is one of the most powerful mortals of this age and who is obviously a nexus point for fate. I don't want the knowledge of their experience with Aedric magick, and I don't want to offer them access to secrets that may bind them to my service forever."

And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Class change tokens are now Lore Friendly (hell, you literally got the ability to respec in Skyrim FROM Hermaeus Mora), they wouldn't hurt the game in ANY way (FOTM Chasers can easily just make one character of every class. Lvling to 50 is quick and easy if you don't care about the RP journey that the character is on and you don't use the character as your self representation in the game world), they would be exceptionally profitable for ZOS, and they would bring back players like me to the game who don't find making an alt and abandoning your avatar within the game world a reasonable solution to class fatigue in a primarily story driven game.

Why do you think you have to do everything all over again on a new character.
I have many characters. Most of which haven't done most of everything.
You know champion points are account wide right?
When you start a new character you can immediately select all their CP perks.
All you do is power level a character to level 50 and they will be as capable as your first character.

Some people are just different. That was my concern too, I put a lot of time into my Magcro and made it my main. I want to do at least the vast majority of content with it so hearing that a class is going to be based on my favorite Daedric Prince, plus the spells look really good, has me interested. However, there is no way I am going to go through all of that content again. I may not do trials or HM stuff, typically just the normal version of dungeons, but this game is so massive now. So AT BEST a character who is this class will be, what I call, a main secondary... just means on days I don't feel like playing my main they are the first I jump to.

Plus you can grind to 50 but still be lacking Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Psijic, Undaunted etc. That can be annoying to relevel if you can't buy it in the crown store.

I only level up skill lines I know that will be part of my build.
I don't have Undaunted or Mages guild maxed on any of my characters.

Avoranti

I am pretty excited for this new class. To be honest, the game needed it. Things were starting to get stale.

UntilValhalla13

Would this be an aoe taunt or am I reading too much into it?

blktauna

cmetzger93 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I don't think the new class is the feature. Near the end, they mentioned a new infinite dungeon system to be released in an update after the Necrom chapter.

Going to push back on this a bit. The amount of work and balancing that it takes to make a new class, it is absolutely a new feature that changes the dynamic of multiple aspects of the game.

The infinite dungeon is also a new feature that we're excited to get to later this year, but we should not discount a new class. It's a ton of work to get as feature like a new class online, and the team is excited to be able to fulfill this request.

Push back on it all you want you only have to look at this forum that you moderate to see what it is people actually wanted and this wasn't it

dunno it's working for me and I very much did not want this spellcrafting thing, so ...

Seraphayel

Uhm, some people here are reading way too much into using tomes. You remember that we still use weapons like Destruction Staff or Bow and the tome will at best be part of one or two skill animations and that’s it?

We’ve seen one skill in the cinematic where the character used a tome for some kind of laser spell - just Jesus Beam from a book. Which class used such specific things akin to tomes for their skills? Right, none does.

Look at the video where they showed off Arcanist. Zero tomes have been seen right there.

tsaescishoeshiner

I'm looking forward to learn more about the class!

I like the theme, which reads more like "Lost Knowledge/Forgotten Magic" than JUST "Hermaeus Mora" to me. Plus, the visuals and sounds seem like something I could get really used to.

Of course, we'll never know until PTS/launch day. The class could feel clunky or finicky, or shoehorned into certain abilities, for example. No expectations, just hoping for a fun new class.

Screamer19b14_ESO

thejadefalcon wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

Will we get more character slots? You know, for those of us already attached to 18 characters?

Yes! We are getting two new slots taking the total to 20!

Why not 21? Three of each class, one for each role, it's so obvious.

@ZOS_Kevin

EF321

Screamer19b14_ESO wrote: »

thejadefalcon wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

Will we get more character slots? You know, for those of us already attached to 18 characters?

Yes! We are getting two new slots taking the total to 20!

Why not 21? Three of each class, one for each role, it's so obvious.

@ZOS_Kevin

Excited to have 2.85 characters of each class

Jammy420

Another class and no class change token. Sorry, I am not playing through the game AGAIN and doing everything AGAIN. I would LOVE to change my stamden into this class, but I am absolutely not doing it all again.

Jammy420

Stinkyremy wrote: »

CoolBlast3 wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

CoolBlast3 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

Will we get more character slots? You know, for those of us already attached to 18 characters?

Yes! We are getting two new slots taking the total to 20!

Are there any thoughts on class changes?
We need a way of changing class, even if only once per toon!
After years of having a main, I've done every quest in the game, i've all my skill lines leveled, i've so much grind put in. I want to play with the new class (it looks AMAZING) but I won't actively be able to without class changing

I want to keep playing the story with my character who i'm attached too...but that'll lock me out of enjoying a new feature.

ZOS, you can do this in a way where you still control the grind-skip Crown Store items.
Make the tokens limited so people can't change at will. Sell them only when a new class or massive balance change drops. Do it only once, I don't know, but please, we need this! Please think about it at least!

That is a nothing issue, just change to a different toon.
Yeah sure if you only wanted to do the PVE story once but wanted to play as X class and your main is Y class, it is a bit annoying but the PVE is so easy it doesn't even matter what class you play as as everything dies by spamming one skill.

With the universal achievements tied to every account now, it is so easy to just switch a different toon and still make overall progress in grindy content.

It isn't a nothing issue. It's hundreds of hours of being connected to a character thrown away just to be able to do content we paid for lol. I get not everyone does the "roleplaying" part of the massively multiplayer roleplaying game, but it's still a valuable aspect of it.

Roleplaying is cool, but quite simply what are you missing out on by just changing characters?
You can swap the gear from your main to alt via the back, back and forth, or create and earn gear for the alt instead.
The alt can get every skill the main can get except the 3 unique class skill lines.
The alt can do every quest the main can do.
And now with universal achievements, minus a few unique achievements, the alts progress (in most achievements) is shared with the main.

There is little in the way of restriction other than the one you are making for yourself.

I am not against class change, and even myself I pretty much always play with my main, but if I really wanted to change to a different character, there is nothing stopping me.

Its called emotional attachment. A lot of people have that to characters they have spent years on in MMOs, it is in fact more common than the people that just use hollow shells of characters.

This is an RPG after all.

Jammy420

Lumenn wrote: »

So dmg shields, blasts, projectiles, gates, buffs, runes, and a magic book. It SOUNDS interesting, and I'll end up trying it out(I've only got 14 characters) but what about melee? This game is SO heavy on Magicka until recently we were BEGGING for stamina morphs. I'll of course have to wait until pts to make up my mind if it's for me, but disappointed 3 times over now you passed over Monk.

You have 2 handed, 1 handed and shield, dual wielding, and bow. Nearly all the most effective skills are the stamina based ones, give magicka users more weapons and we can talk about more morphs for stam.

Baertram

Khenarthi wrote: »

Will we get more character slots? You know, for those of us already attached to 18 characters?

Very true, @ZOS_GinaBruno please really consider this! If I need to delete another char of mine to test this new class, I'd rather not test it and you loose money for sure. And you see we are not that few ppl who got 18 chars already!
Please add more slots buyable at the crown store, for the same account. At least 2,better 3 so we can try and play all the cheats we want to AND what ESO always advertised the way we like it to play.
Thank you very much.

fizl101

Baertram wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

Will we get more character slots? You know, for those of us already attached to 18 characters?

Very true, @ZOS_GinaBruno please really consider this! If I need to delete another char of mine to test this new class, I'd rather not test it and you loose money for sure. And you see we are not that few ppl who got 18 chars already!
Please add more slots buyable at the crown store, for the same account. At least 2,better 3 so we can try and play all the cheats we want to AND what ESO always advertised the way we like it to play.
Thank you very much.

It has already been confirmed that it will go up to 20 slots, 1 for sale and 1 with necrom

Muizer

If the arcanist class plays well as it is depicted in the cinematic trailer ( high mobility melee range dps) I'm up for it.

tomfant wrote: »

Power levelling to 50 is not the issue.
To fully flesh out a new char, you'll have to invest a lot of time and grind. Very likely its still needed to level skill lines of the fighters and mages guild as well as the psijic order. And you'll need skill points for all those abilities.
You also need horse training (which alone takes 180 days).

Last time I leveled a new character from scratch, I took her through all the zones just doing the delves and skyshards. IIRC that's about what it took to level everything she needed. It's not too bad. I'll be doing new zones on my main though. A system like Antiquities favours having one character that's been everywhere.

shadyjane62

nb_rich wrote: »

I currently play on console so do not know much about the PTS but hopefully this makes it on there before launch. Reason being is your going to want to listen and read all the feedback before it goes live to have the class as balanced as possible. This is what actually worries me for about making this class, since it might be really over powered in the beginning then after that get nerfed really bad wthen every patch go through some sort of change that just pushes people away from it

I played the PTS for high Isle. I played the PTS for U35. It did no good. They listened to nothing. So disheartened to put in all that work searching out bugs only to see them come straight thru to live. Once something is on the PTS we are are just testing slaves there to root out game breaking bugs.

They never fix anything.
By the way, I'm still stuck in combat half the time.

Baertram

fizl101 wrote: »

Baertram wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

Will we get more character slots? You know, for those of us already attached to 18 characters?

Very true, @ZOS_GinaBruno please really consider this! If I need to delete another char of mine to test this new class, I'd rather not test it and you loose money for sure. And you see we are not that few ppl who got 18 chars already!
Please add more slots buyable at the crown store, for the same account. At least 2,better 3 so we can try and play all the cheats we want to AND what ESO always advertised the way we like it to play.
Thank you very much.

It has already been confirmed that it will go up to 20 slots, 1 for sale and 1 with necrom

Thanks a lot for the info, found this therad now too:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7796739#Comment_7796739

A dream comes true

Lumenn

Jammy420 wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

So dmg shields, blasts, projectiles, gates, buffs, runes, and a magic book. It SOUNDS interesting, and I'll end up trying it out(I've only got 14 characters) but what about melee? This game is SO heavy on Magicka until recently we were BEGGING for stamina morphs. I'll of course have to wait until pts to make up my mind if it's for me, but disappointed 3 times over now you passed over Monk.

You have 2 handed, 1 handed and shield, dual wielding, and bow. Nearly all the most effective skills are the stamina based ones, give magicka users more weapons and we can talk about more morphs for stam.

Nah don't even go there. I was reading these same arguments 7 years ago, and I play Magicka (my main is still a mostly Magicka sorcerer) frost, lightning, fire and healing, and don't even try to say they don't play differently depending on which staff you're using. As for more effective that is subjective and you know it. Pvp? Burst? Solo? I'm not rehashing 7 years of ascetics, you can go back and read those tired old arguments if you want.

Perhaps you simply misread my post. I believe my post was over all about class, and not some tired old argument regarding the need for a new Magicka animation. Fact is every class still starts off Magicka and until the last two classes(again this is subjective) you hoped for a stamina morph that was actually stamina. (Warden does the best with this). A monk that starts off using stamina and a bo, gloves, throwing stars, SOMETHING would have been nice. Instead once again we have a finger wiggling, let's shoot sparkles from our hands with Magicka shields and read out of a book. If you read my post you'd also see I said it sounds interesting, and I'll probably try it, but I was disappointed due to monk being passed over a 3rd time.

ForumBully

It was mentioned that this "combo" system was something that everyone would get to experience...I'm assuming that this is the tentpole system then and that all classes are getting a slight revamp or in another way going under the same combo system.
Visually, my first though was that it looked like stacking charges via the psijic line but I'm curious to see more

LadyLavina

@ZOS_Kevin Will the Arcanist have a class-specific taunt at all in terms of tank purposes? If you can't answer I understand, and I'm not looking for a specific description, just wondering if it will have one.

LukosCreyden

Cannot remember if I posted in here already or not lol. But here goes:

The new class looks great and the combo system sounds fantastic. Definitely a worthwhile addition.
However.
I have to echo the sentiment that without the ability to change classes, this cool new addition is something that many will have to miss out on.
A lot of people are attached to their characters and the amount of progress they've made with questing and skill lines. So much so, that they will be unwilling to start afresh for a new class, despite being interested in it.
As such, I believe that either focusing on independent skill lines that everyone can use, or introducing the ability to change class, would be ideal. This way, people won't miss out on the big new feature of the year.

I hope a class change feature can be acknowledged and considered for the near future.

fxeconomisteb17_ESO

Yes, the reveal felt extremely underwhelming. I remember the previous things said by Zenimax. That the game is already too big, "the size of several MMOs", that there is enough zone and questing content, and that these zones have to be re-valued by new Systems. So yes, I expected Spellcrafting too. It would be interesting to see if the Arcanist would be the only class able to Spellcraft. I mean, going to Apocrypha, books and secrets... logic says you find some occult information to use. Sure, that would make the Arcanist the only one able to do that, leaving in the dust the other classes. As well as the idea to give more value to the existing zones. I felt very dissapointed. At least we'll see if the sets have any value though. Hope this time we avoid the High Isle deception, Major Heroism left on the Oakensoul ring, it passes thru PTS, it passes thru release, and then removed....

emilyhyoyeon

Syldras wrote: »

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Tentacles have no place on the fantasy archetype of an Arcanist.

Rename him to "Acolyte of Hermaeus Mora". Done. I agree though that this class is strangely specific. Same goes for the druidlike Warden which doesn't really have a reason to be related to Vvardenfell.

The name Acolyte instead of Arcanist for the class is a lot more fitting. Kind of cool actually.


Fundamentally I still have an issue with a class--something inherently restrictive--being centered around something super specific, making it even more restrictive without some serious headcanoning going on.

I know a new class was a super requested feature. And think I can pretty safely assume a new class would attract more attention marketing-wise than a new skill line. But the Arcanist class IMO would have made a much better skill line.

The visuals look beautiful from what I've seen. I don't have any issue with how the class has been done, except for the fact that it is a class.

The concept of going to a new land, getting acquainted with a daedric prince and learning their secrets slowly, getting a glimpse into their powers, etc, and having that manifest as unlocking a skill line for that character is just perfect (for what I'm understanding that is to come).

To me, what the Arcanist is doesn't make sense as a class. Its concept is just perfect for a skill line.



And actually, the more I think about it, they could've even done two skill lines: one Mora focused, and one more generic that could be a one hand rune weapon skill line, since it looks like a lot of the animations could work for something like that especially with some color changes.